Introduction to Steamrunners
Steamrunners is a casino slot from Hacksaw Gaming, taking you to the skies on board a steampunk blimp cruising between floating cities. It's not entirely clear how this world became so fractured that entire settlements were lifted off the ground, but now they're being watched over by a technically savvy group, constructing elaborate machinery to help civilization adapt to the new conditions. Among their latest inventions, you'll find a 5x4 grid on which canisters filled with mysterious gas can land and spread the substance around the reels, converting low-paying symbols into Wilds. Additionally, such a reaction may result in added multipliers up to x200 per transformed icon. Within the three bonus rounds available in this slot, you'll be able to benefit from enhanced base game mechanics, where multipliers can increase further, up to x5,000, and certain symbols, like Wilds and Gas Canisters, may become sticky throughout.
If you'd like to watch Steamrunners at work without the need to put yourself on the line, you can always try the demo mode, where you can explore all the features risk-free.
Theme, Gameplay & Payouts
Steamrunners is a video slot from Hacksaw Gaming with 5 reels, 4 rows, and 14 paylines. You can choose your stake from a range of options, starting from a Min.bet of 0.1, which makes the game particularly affordable, up to a Max.bet of 100. The math profile offers a default RTP of 96.32%, which is in line with the industry standards, although several alternative variants of 94.30%, 92.24%, and 86.26% are also released, so make sure you check the version you're playing. You can expect a fair balance between the value and the frequency of wins due to medium volatility, while the max win available on any single round is 10,000x the bet. The base game hit frequency comes at an average rate of 20.7%.
The game's main scene is set high in the skies, with a clear view spanning the background. Far in the distance, we can see several silhouettes of castles floating among the clouds, marking the areas where the levitating cities have settled. One of the Steamrunners stands on the deck closer to us, proudly presenting his mechanical arm, an augmentation that most likely marks his affiliation with the group. On the right, a small makeshift airplane wiggles above the floor in anticipation of the upcoming action on the centrally located grid. Reels sit inside a contraption made of pipes, lightbulbs, and gears, injecting the scene with a genuine steampunk feel, although in a lighthearted, cartoony manner, which is further intensified by a carefree adventure soundtrack. If you're up for a ride in the sky, you can launch the game on any modern device, whether you're using a desktop, a smartphone, or a tablet.
Winning combinations require regular symbols to land in sets of 3 to 5 matching instances running through adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost one on any of the active paylines. The paytable hierarchy contains two groups of paying icons. Low-paying ones appear as playing card emblems, including 10, J, Q, K, and A, awarding 1x the bet for a 5-of-a-kind combination. High-paying symbols depict a spyglass, a scroll, a top hat, a gramophone, and a pair of goggles, and they bring payouts of between 2.5x and 5x the bet when matching 5 on a payline. Wilds are represented by a golden letter 'W', and they will substitute for other regular symbols during win evaluation, while awarding payouts worth 10x the bet for an independent 5-of-a-kind hit. FS Scatters come in the form of a sign with gold 'FS' letters on its surface.
Special Features & Slot Mechanics
What is the max win in the slot Steamrunners?
You can win up to 10,000x the bet.
What features are available in the slot Steamrunners?
The features are Wild Gas Canisters, Sky City Bonus, Gaslight District Bonus, Court of High Steam Bonus, and Feature Buy.
Wild Gas Canisters
Two types of Wild Gas Canisters may land on any reel: a green one and a purple one. When the Green Gas Canister appears, it will spread itself to any horizontally and vertically adjacent low-paying and Wild symbols, converting all of them into Wilds. If a converted symbol has more low-paying icons adjacent to it, the sequence will continue until there are no more conversions available. The Purple Gas Canisters affect all symbols on the grid, regardless of their position in relation to it. Any transformed low-paying symbols may also randomly receive a multiplier of x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, x15, x20, x25, x50, x75, x100, or x200. Transformed Wilds always get an x2 value. Scoring a payline win that involves several multipliers will add them together first before applying their total to the payout.
Sky City Bonus
When you see 3 FS Scatters appear simultaneously on the grid, you'll receive 8 free spins. During this round, the base game mechanics are maintained, but any Wild symbols with multipliers will remain sticky in their positions until the end. Every time a Wild with a multiplier is affected by the Gas Canister, its multiplier doubles, up to a maximum of x5,000. Landing 2 or 3 FS Scatters at the same time awards 2 or 4 additional spins.
Gaslight District Bonus
With 4 FS Scatters dropping in a single base game spin, you are granted entry to a round of 10 free spins. Here, all the previous mechanics stay the same, but there will be at least one Wild symbol guaranteed on the grid on each spin. Again, 2 or 3 FS Scatters on the same free spin award 2 or 4 extra rounds.
Court of High Steam Hidden Epic Bonus
The most powerful bonus game requires 5 FS Scatters to land in the same spin. 10 free spins are awarded, replicating the playstyle of the previous rounds, with an additional Gas Canister symbol guaranteed on every free spin. As with the previous variants, 2 or 3 Scatters landing simultaneously add 2 or 4 free spins to the tally.
Feature Buy
With Steamrunners, you have several options to use if you want to boost your base game spins or trigger certain features and bonuses right away.
3x = Bonushunt Featurespins with a 5-times higher chance to trigger a bonus game.
50x = Smokeshow Featurespins, guaranteeing at least 1 Gas Canister symbol to land.
80x = Sky City Bonus with 8 free spins.
200x = Gaslight District Bonus with 10 free spins.
Final Thoughts on Steamrunners
The first look at Steamrunners instantly shows all the Hacksaw Gaming's recognizable elements fused into one consistent package. A vivid, sleek graphic design, classic grid structure, and two characters flanking the playing panel are a pretty standard setup we grew to expect from the studio. It may not carry a comparable level of depth as some of the more elaborate productions from the provider's portfolio, like Cursed Seas, Duel at Dawn, or Strength of Hercules, but it plays as smoothly as any other release. Given that the theme revolves around the steampunk genre, we think the scene could benefit from a stronger emphasis on the steam element itself, which could add some more character to the setting. Still, the Steamrunners' playful angle may appeal to a wider audience, and maybe that was the whole point, not to focus on the hardcore fans of grungy steampunk only.
Just as you can associate the visuals with the studio almost instantly, you can also find a familiar pattern in the mechanics. Spreading, whether vertical or horizontal, while generating or transforming symbols into Wilds, has become Hacksaw's staple long ago. This time, however, it's not one or the other, but a potent solution capable of taking over most parts of the grid. Naturally, we're talking about Gas Canisters, which convert adjacent low-paying symbols to Wilds with potential multipliers of up to x200 per symbol. It's a genuinely clever way of shifting the focus from the top to the bottom part of the paytable, which doesn't happen often in online slots. With Steamrunners, you almost prefer for the grid to be riddled with royals, because once that Gas Canister drops, you're looking at a swarm of Wilds instead. There's a massive dose of anticipation packed into each spin thanks to that, whether it's in the base game or any of the three bonus rounds. And with multipliers on Sticky Wilds throughout free spins doubling up every time they're affected by Gas Canisters, up to a staggering x5,000 per symbol, you can easily imagine how to achieve that 10,000x max win.
Steamrunners combines a retro steampunk feel with a modern design while drawing all its potential from converting low-paying symbols into Wilds and boosting them with multipliers.
